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Molloy: I’ll see you and your hand (and your fantastic fingers and your gifted tongue) after work. I finish at 9. See you then, stud.
Grinning like a dope,I began to tap out a text to let her know that I was on my way, when my phone decided to ring.
My stomach sank into my ass when Shannon’s name flashed across the screen.
I didn’t want to answer her because I already knew what it was she needed, and I didn’t want to be needed tonight.
Skin crawling, I forced myself to press accept and put the phone to my ear.
“Joe,” she sobbed down the line. “Can you come home? We need you.”
Exhaling a weary sigh, I closed my eyes and let my head fall forward. “I’m on my way.”
* * *
I was roundingthe corner at the bottom of the hill to our road when I saw her.
The minute my eyes landed on her face, my hackles rose, and my blood ran cold in my veins. “What happened?”
“Hi, Joe.” She offered me a small wave, as she stood under the streetlamp in the pissing rain. “H-how are you?”
“I’m grand, Shan.” On high alert and poised for danger, I closed the space between us, not stopping until I had her chin tipped up. “Jesus Christ.”
Her left eye was swollen shut and darkening at a rapid pace.
“I’m ok-kay,” she strangled out, shaking from what I presumed was a mixture of fear and the cold. Her teeth chattered violently as I inspected her face with a horrified expression. “It’s n-not as b-bad as it l-looks.”
“It’s not okay, Shan,” I choked out, feeling like I was physically inhaling her pain in this moment.
Because she might be wearing the bruises tonight, but I was wearing the shame, along with the absolute fucking guilt of not being here to stop this from happening to her.
Again.
“I know I sh-shouldn’t be o-outside this late,” she sobbed, throwing her arms around me. “But if I d-didn’t get out, he w-was g-going to k-kill me.”
“You did the right thing,” I assured her, body rigid, as I tried and failed to comfort her. “You absolutely did the right thing. If he puts his hands on you, and I’m not here, then you run, Shannon. You fucking run, ya hear me?”
Sniffling, she looked up at me and nodded. “I h-hear you, Joe.”
“Where is he?” I demanded then, striding past her, in my bid to get my hands on the piece of shit we had the misfortune of callingdad.
“D-don’t, Joe,” Shannon cried out, chasing after me. “I’m n-not w-worth getting h-hurt over.”
“You are worth it,” I roared back, shoving the front door open. “Of course you’re fucking worth it, Shannon. You’re worth a thousand of that piece of shit, and don’t you ever let him make you feel anything less!”
“Joey, wait!” Mam hurried to intercept me at the front door. “He didn’t mean to hurt her—“
“Move,” I snarled, stepping around my mother, as I barreled inside, breathing flames of fury. “Get the fuck out here, old man. Come out and hit someone your own goddamn size!”
“Joey,” Tadhg cried out from where he was hiding behind the banister. Cowering at his side were Ollie and Sean. “He’s after losing it.”
Yeah?
Well so had I.
“Where’s the fire?” Dad barked, when he stalked out of the utility room that housed the toilet. He fumbled with the zipper of his jeans and then hissed sharply. “Jesus Christ, boy, pack in the roaring, will ya? I nearly cut my cock off.”
“Pity you didn’t!” I roared, livid, as I stalked towards him, feeling the blood rush to my hands as they clenched into fists of their own accord. Even if my mind wasn’t ready for this man, my body sure as hell was. “You put your hands on my sister,” I seethed, not stopping until I was in his face. “Did it make you feel like a man?” Shoving his chest with everything I had in me, I watched as he staggered backwards.
